


Once Burned, Twice Shy

by hobbitdragon



Series: All Your Favorite Superheroes Are Trans [6]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Background Sam/Steve - Freeform, Body Dysphoria, Hurt No Comfort, Nonbinary Bucky Barnes, Other, Self-Harm, Tony has a lot of feelings about hosting his parents' killer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-22
Updated: 2017-12-22
Packaged: 2019-02-18 10:37:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,474
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13098333
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hobbitdragon/pseuds/hobbitdragon
Summary: Barnes comes to the Avengers Tower.





	Once Burned, Twice Shy

**Author's Note:**

> I intended this as the first chapter of a much longer piece, but my inspiration is fickle, so it's unlikely the rest will ever be finished. I think this bit stands alone tolerably well, though, so here it is. 
> 
> CONTENT WARNING: this story depicts self-harm via burning, and specifically self-harm related to genital dysphoria. Read with care. There is also no happy ending on this fic, aside from the vague implication that things could get better someday since everyone is trying to be decent to each other. 
> 
> There is also some genital language used by the characters that not every trans person wants applied to them or their bodies, and discussion of misgendering.

Tony grits his teeth, presses his tongue to the roof of his mouth, and purses his lips to keep himself from saying anything. The muscles along his sternum and spine ache with tension. 

As Barnes had promised, the relevant panels pop off once Tony finds the correct places to insert a screwdriver. The resulting space allows Tony to reach in and remove the trackers from inside the arm, and take the panels away so the red star can be removed later. Tony tried with an ordinary sander first, but Hydra had not only innovated the construction of the arm itself but also the paint they used on it. It would require a significant amount of time to get the red star off each and every panel, and in the meantime Barnes doesn’t need to sit through hours of screeching. 

....Much though Tony fantasizes about that as he works the final panel loose. His arms stick to his sides with his own sweat. He’s sure he has gross pit-stains, even though the room is a pleasant 68 degrees Fahrenheit and Tony is not doing anything strenuous. 

Barnes watches Tony as he works, with a blank stare that could be anxious, could be judgmental, could be bored. Tony keeps thinking he sees real expression behind the curtain of brown hair, but the next time Tony looks up from his work, he’s no longer sure. 

“So, uh,” Tony starts, and then forces himself to swallow down a host of other words that feel like they’re crawling up his throat to accumulate behind his teeth. “Pronouns. Steve didn’t seem sure which were the right ones for you. He, she, they? Ze? Something else?”

Barnes’s eyes move around Tony’s face, regarding Tony’s mouth first, then his eyes, then apparently his left ear and cheekbone. Then Barnes turns away, letting out a slow sigh. 

“ People get pronouns,” is the only reply. “I don’t count.”

Tony winces. It’s not the first time Tony’s heard Barnes say something baldly self-loathing like this, but it’s the first time such a statement has been directed at Tony himself. 

“Even dogs get pronouns, not that they care,” he mutters. _He_ cares about pronouns, everyone has a right to the correct ones, but it’s hard to care about James Buchanan Barnes, formerly the Winter Soldier, and probable murderer of Howard and Maria Stark. 

Tony makes himself swallow again several times, waiting for a reply from Barnes that doesn’t come. His fingers are almost too slippery and shaky to manage fiddly work like this, so Tony sets down his tools to wipe his palms on his jeans. But after a second he can’t bear to be still, so he slides the screwdriver into the little nook behind a piston, feeling for the object his scans tell him must be there. After some fumbling he finds it, feeling the size of it with the tip. 

_ I’m going to be polite if it kills me, _ Tony tells himself. 

“You’re afraid of me,” Barnes remarks into the room, in a soft voice that could be almost tender. “I can smell your sweat.”

Tony’s lip curls back, and a flash of self-consciousness sends tingles down his collarbones to his palms. 

“No, I’m angry,” he spits before he can stop himself. Then he stops, sits up, turns his face away, and forces a breath in and out. His throat and chest both protest. 

“Mm,” Barnes agrees. Or it might be a denial. “Steve told me I was probably the one who killed your parents.”

“Not even gonna say you’re sorry?” comes the snapped response with no intervention from Tony’s brain. His teeth hurt when he catches himself before he says more, biting down to keep it in. “Ugh, forget I said that. I know it wasn’t--”

“Would an apology from me mean anything?” Barnes asks, in the same soft, distant tone. “If words will make a difference, I’ll say anything you want.”

_ That’s not playing fair, _ Tony thinks.  _ It’s not fair that you’re a victim too. Damn Rogers for showing me the Winter Soldier file. _ Tony’s regretting the lunch he ate before this, and it seems to regret being inside him, too, given the way it keeps turning in his stomach like an animal trying to get comfortable. He gulps down more words again, picks up his pliers, and slides them into the workings of Barnes’s arm. The first two times Tony tries to catch hold of the little bump of a tracking device he misses it, metal slipping against plastic. 

“No, it’s....” Tony can’t say it’s fine. It’s  _ not _ fine, and it’ll never be fine. “I don’t need an apology from you,” Tony says instead, and that’s at least a little bit more true. “I know it wasn’t really your fault, and wasn’t what you wanted.” A choked laugh escapes him, and his face feels achy and stiff when the skin moves to form a smile. “Sometimes I wonder if you did me a favor, really. At least this way, Dad never disowned me when I came out as trans. Now I’m a billionaire.”

Those soft blue eyes look at Tony, brown lashes moving as the gaze explores his face again. 

“That’s not what you really believe,” comes the quiet reply. 

Tony laughs, a wild bark of air escaping him that feels more like being stabbed than any kind of humor. This time, he catches the tracker with his plier, and with a tug it comes free. 

It’s red. Of course it is. Tony has to hope that whatever Hydra intern is supposed to monitor the location of Hydra’s favorite toy cyborg has been too stressed (or too dead thanks to Steve and Wilson) to notice that the tracker has been pinging in the Avengers Tower for a week now. Not that Hydra could easily get up to the higher floors of the tower, but someone with determination and a big enough bomb could do serious structural damage.

“No,” Tony agrees. “It’s not what I believe. Now go away, Barnes. I’ll call you in again when your plates are ready to be put back on.”

Barnes gets up without another word, movements near-silent. The lab door clicks closed behind the big retreating shape, locking Barnes out. 

Tony closes his eyes for a moment, letting himself feel the way he wants to cry. Then he picks up a blowtorch and the tracker, and disposes of another thing connecting Barnes to Hydra. 

 

**

 

Tony finishes the sanding and polishing within a couple hours, but he can’t face Barnes again so soon. So he sets the clean, shining adamantium plates aside, downs a few Ambien, and forces himself into bed. 

He dreams of the cave, of his head held underwater and electricity running through him. In the dream, the first Iron Man suit is not dull, heavy iron but bright adamantium, with a liquid, muscular design for which Tony feels great pride. When Tony sees his reflection in the armor, he has long hair and blue eyes. 

When Tony wakes up, he’s soaked in sweat again. 

“I know,” he tells the empty room, and digs the heels of his hands into his eyes, denying the world for just a moment longer. “I know. Leave me alone.”

As soon as Tony’s dressed he calls Barnes into the lab. Barnes pads in wearing soft flannel pants and an a-frame shirt that show off thick thighs and both massive arms, the metal one and the flesh. 

Popping the plates into alignment is the work of a few moments. Normally the arm would have Tony salivating, and if he lets himself think of it seriously (or ignores who it’s attached to) then it still does. It’s beautiful, erotic, powerful. 

It’s attached to a murderer. It’s attached to a victim. 

Hydra made it. 

“For what it’s worth, I am sorry,” Barnes murmurs. “This isn’t the way things should be.”

A burning sensation along his bottom eyelids warns Tony and he turns away, staring at the ceiling and blinking until the sensation dissipates. 

“I know it’s not your fault,” Tony admits after too long a silence. He’s being cruel in letting his anger and hurt show, he knows that. He’s being the kind of man who didn’t deserve to make it out of that cave. “Did Steve tell you anything about me?” he asks, forcing his tone into something approaching casual. 

“You’re forty-two, bisexual, and transgender,” Barnes reports, deadpan. A bit clinical, Tony thinks, but so far accurate. “You are a billionaire, and had sex with Steve on a single occasion. Steve’s face when he talked about it showed that he enjoyed it very much.” That’s more flattering, though only news to Tony insofar as Barnes knows of it. Barnes settles a little further into the swivel-chair, which creaks under the weight. Tony needs to take the can of WD-40 to the hinge again. “You’re lonely and don’t know how to connect with people, so you designed the living spaces of this tower in an attempt to make a new family to replace the one you lost. Your mental health has improved, however, since Bruce Banner moved in.”

“That’s--” Tony begins, but Barnes goes right on in that low, dispassionate voice.

“Steve admires you. He said that you are a good man even though your mouth gets away from you, and that you and I have things in common. He did't specify what.”

A laugh breaks out of Tony’s chest at that. For a few seconds it shakes him, and then it stops, leaving an aching stillness in its wake. 

“Well, we were both kidnapped by our enemies, tortured, coerced into doing things we did not want, and given implants we didn’t consent to under disgusting circumstances. So yeah. Things in common.”

Barnes’s eyebrows actually lift at this. It’s more of an expression than Tony’s seen before on Barnes. It makes Barnes seem....human, and thus approachable. Maybe that’s why the next words come out. 

“Difference is, I wasn’t alone with my captors, and they didn’t have the tools that Hydra did,” Tony admits, because Steve was right, Tony’s mouth really does run away from him. “I had a good man there with me, and the people who kidnapped me were limited to a few basic forms of torture and coercion. Nothing like what they did to you. So I escaped after not too long.”

It  _ felt _ like a lifetime he spent in there with the Ten Rings. But Tony’s months in Afghanistan don't even compare to the seventy years Barnes spent with Hydra, and Tony knows it. Barnes nods at him, mouth tightening into a curl of displeasure. 

“Hydra could have done great things with you. I’m glad they weren’t the ones to find you.”

A shiver of horror claws up Tony’s spine. He sucks a sharp breath through his nose, but still feels airless and dizzy. 

“Yeah,” he agrees after a long pause. “I’m....glad too.”

It’s easy to imagine electrodes built into the helmet of his own Suit, powered by his own arc reactor and ready to wipe him into compliance at any time. It’s easy to imagine a legion of Hydra operatives in Suits, with weapons powered by arc reactor technology. 

Tony wonders how close he came to that. He wonders if Hydra had their eye on him for just this purpose. He wonders if JARVIS has already found evidence of it in the data dump from the Triskelion. 

_ Change the subject, _ Tony tells himself.  _ You’re gonna give yourself a heart attack if you talk about this for much longer. _

“So you and Steve,” Tony quavers, then coughs to get his voice under control again. “I always figured you used to be an item. Care to set the rumors to rest?”

It occurs to Tony then how close he’s sitting to Barnes. Tony pushes back his chair, putting some distance between him and the gleaming metal arm. 

But Barnes’s eyes just squeeze shut, face turning away from Tony. The big shoulders and deep chest rise with a silent inhale and exhale. “Yeah, we were,” comes the short reply. 

“But not anymore?” Tony ventures, and wonders if he just put his foot right in it. 

“I expect that Steve and....Sam....” there’s a pause around the name, like Barnes isn’t sure what to call the guy, “will announce their engagement any day now.” Tony winces; yep, foot completely inserted into mouth. “Even if they weren’t together, I’m too broken.”

For a long moment, Tony stares out the window at the New York horizon of skyscrapers and ocean, wishing he’d just sent Barnes away after replacing the shoulder plates. He doesn’t want to be talking to the Winter Soldier, and he especially doesn’t want to be talking to the Winter Soldier about Captain America’s love life. But it’s too late for hindsight now. 

“You’re a handsome guy, though. Er, beautiful woman. Attractive person? I don’t know, what’s the right language for you? Anyway, I’m sure there’s enough of Steve to go around.” What if Steve is monogamous though? It hadn’t occurred to Tony till just now, because he’s not sure why anyone would choose to have less when they could have more. But Steve is old-fashioned about some things, and this might be one of them. 

Barnes shrugs, as though the potential to be wanted by Steve Rogers--national icon, abnormally good human being, sexual dynamo, and blushing sweetheart--is irrelevant and disinteresting.

“Steve loves me, I know. It just doesn’t matter. Thank you, Stark.”

Barnes is gone again a few seconds later, leaving Tony to watch goosebumps lift on the skin of his forearms. 

 

**

 

Tony does not, as a rule, spy on his guests and teammates. He doesn’t ask JARVIS to do it for him, either. Having been monitored by the Ten Rings while in captivity, Tony knows exactly how creepy surveillance is, and how what is seen that way can be prone to misinterpretation according to the watcher’s desires.

But Barnes is not just any guest, and he isn’t a teammate either. He is a skilled operative with known ties to Hydra. And while Tony believes both Steve and his own senses telling him that Barnes does not pose an immediate threat, Tony still asks JARVIS to monitor Barnes for ‘suspicious behavior.’

That turns into more of a conversation than Tony expected. 

“What constitutes suspicious behavior is individual and subjective, sir,” JARVIS states, judgment evident in their voice. “May I remind you that you yourself do many suspect and dangerous things on a weekly basis?”

“Not the same, JARV,” Tony protests, because while it’s true,  _ he _ isn’t a Hydra-brainwashed supersoldier cyborg. ( _ No, _ another mean little part of himself says,  _ you’re just a man who was so hyped up on his own bullshit that you took pride in being the Merchant of Death. You don’t have half the excuses that Barnes does. Maybe it’s you who needs to be watched.) _ “Look, just—just let me know if Barnes threatens someone, or tries to attack someone, or starts hoarding weapons, or does something actively dangerous to someone in the Tower, okay? Legitimate things like that.”

“Sergeant Barnes currently has a stash of twelve guns, seventeen knives, and a variety of other tools that could be used to cause harm, sir, not counting the metal arm. Is that what you wished to know?”

Tony’s heart skips a beat. It skips several beats, and a wave of horror runs through Tony from nape to gut. 

“Jesus  _ Christ _ , JARVIS, you didn’t think that was relevant to tell anyone that  _ before _ now?”

“No, sir, I did not,” JARVIS sniffs, insofar as it is possible for a computerized voice to sniff. If JARVIS had a nose, it would be raised, Tony thinks, and JARVIS would be looking down it at Tony. “I have read the Winter Soldier files just like you have, since you asked me to digitize them. I believe the Sergeant does not deserve this scrutiny. Since arriving in the Tower, the Sergeant has not attempted to harm any other residents. The Sergeant has not exhibited  _ any _ behavior that makes me fear others will be harmed, and suspecting the Sergeant of unprovoked violence because of a collection of weapons is a double standard. The Captain himself owns six guns, four of which he keeps in his residence here. Miss Romanoff has closer to twenty that I have been able to see, and while you do not own guns in the strictest sense of the word, the technology at your disposal is equally lethal and of much greater quantity.”

“You’re a damn traitor,” Tony grumbles, but he can’t deny the truth of JARVIS’s words. The Avengers are dangerous as a group, even unarmed, and most of them are some degree of armed most of the time. Including Tony himself, especially if ‘armed’ includes the implants in his wrists that call the Suit to him. 

“No, sir. I merely care about the Sergeant’s wellbeing. If I believe that the Sergeant poses a risk to someone, I will let you know.”

 

**

 

Despite Tony’s protestations, he did not actually expect to hear anything further from JARVIS on that front. So when his music shuts off and JARVIS’s worried voice comes on over the speakers, Tony’s first thought is to wonder if there was a call to assemble Tony somehow missed. 

“I believe Sergeant Barnes is at risk, sir, please go down to the lab at once.”

Tony stands in a rush, sending his chair flying into the wall with a thunk, and is already jogging to the elevator before JARVIS finishes their sentence. 

“You believe—wait, what? Did someone break in? Is there a Hydra team?”

“No, sir, there is no incursion into the Tower, but I believe there is imminent danger.” 

Tony runs down the hall, brow wrinkling up in confusion. 

“If there’s no one here, then what—“

“I would have contacted Captain Rogers, sir, but the Captain is in DC, and the soonest he can arrive is half an hour from now.”

“Am I in any danger? Do we need to lock down the Tower?”

“No, sir, I do not believe you are at any risk.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” Tony mutters to himself, but JARVIS gives no response. Tony’s imagination fills with images of Barnes shooting up the lab, screaming at ghosts, crazed and out of control. 

When the elevator finally deposits him on the right floor and Tony’s cold feet have brought him to the lab, the scene that greets Tony’s eyes is quiet and peaceful compared to his mental images. That does not make it less shocking. 

Barnes sits on one of the worktables, sweatpants around one ankle, legs spread. Tony is at first so stunned by the nakedness—because holy fuck, Barnes has the biggest dick (clit? Barnes still hasn't offered any help in regards to gender clarification) Tony has ever seen on someone with this genital shape, Tony knows he is going to forever feel inadequate and jealous now—that it takes him several seconds and most of the width of the room to process what else is going on. 

Barnes’s left hand holds a propane torch, and all over Barnes’ thighs are burn scars at various stages of healing. Not just the thighs, either, now Tony is close enough to notice; the outer labia and pubic mound are shaved bald and peppered with dark scar tissue as well. There is a contextually-disturbing burned smell, too, now Tony’s lagging brain is processing the room. 

“What the fuck,” Tony says, because that seems to sum up the situation. Then he twitches one wrist, calling the Suit to him, because whatever is going on here, he doesn’t want to face it with just his squishy, breakable body. 

Barnes casts a scowl up toward the ceiling, the way someone might who is trying to give JARVIS a Look. The torch clicks off as Barnes sets it down on the steel surface by one hip. 

“Fine,” Barnes says, as though this were the end of an irritating argument rather than Tony walking in on something disturbing. “Have it your way. For now.” 

The armor envelops Tony in its comforting metallic embrace, and the HUD immediately fills with Barnes’s biosigns: elevated heart rate, increased perspiration, dilated pupils.  

“What the fuck!” Tony says louder, just at the cusp of shouting, because so far there is no explanation and he doesn’t like any of what he sees, including that huge goddamn genital that _probably_ _isn’t even erect_. “What the _actual fuck!"_

JARVIS is ominously silent, so whatever is going on, Tony is alone in it. With Barnes. 

Barnes’s legs finally finally close, briefly hiding everything between them, and then Barnes’s feet hit the floor. When Barnes stands straight, the speckled marks and truly tremendous endowment are again visible from the front, and Tony can’t help staring. 

“JARVIS told you I was a danger to myself, right?” Barnes sighs, mouth curled down at one corner in what might be anger, or might not. “I wasn’t. I know how much I can take.”

“Well you can’t take my fucking propane torch!” Tony shouts. “You can’t take it in any sense of the word ‘take’! It’s not yours, you don’t have my permission to use it, and you can’t  _ withstand _ it, either, because  _ what! The! Fuck!” _

Barnes merely dons the sweatpants, thus hiding away the matter at hand. “Okay, I won’t use your stuff again,” Barnes agrees, and Tony feels like he’s losing his mind in the face of that calm acquiescence. “I’ll see myself out.”

“No you will not!” Tony shouts, and only just keeps himself from adding ‘young man’ or ‘young woman’ at the end and thus making himself sound like both a misgendering asshole  _ and _ an old fart. “You’re gonna tell me what the fuck you were even doing!”

“I was burning my genitals, what did it look like?” Barnes replies, as though Tony is being stupid. “My lighter wasn’t enough today.”

“Your lighter wasn’t—what the  _ fuck,” _ Tony trails off, forcing himself to quiet down. He takes a deep breath in and out, feels the reassuring pressure of the Suit on his ribs, and tries to think coherently. “JARVIS, has he—she?—done this before?”

“It is not my place to violate Sergeant Barnes’s privacy in any situation short of grave threat, sir,” JARVIS hedges, sounding sullen, and Tony takes that as a yes. Because now that the adrenaline is draining out of him, leaving him weak-limbed inside the framework around him, the answer is clear. Even the serum couldn’t have faded burn scars fast enough for the variety of colors that Tony saw between Barnes’s legs. Meaning this has been going on for days, and more likely weeks.

“Look, Barnes,” Tony starts, and knows he should not be the one having this conversation. It should be Steve, because Steve actually knows Barnes and they have a relationship based on trust and love and stuff like that. Unlike Barnes and Tony, who have no real relationship based on anything other than murder. “I know you’ve been through a lot. And it’s not like I haven’t done my share of stupid, self-destructive shit in the past. But fuck’s sake, you have to understand what it looks like when I walk into  my goddamn lab and find you trying to  _ burn your business off with a torch.” _

Barnes shrugs, and Tony wants to punch that awful stubbly face that just looks bored rather than self-conscious or upset. Tony stares up at Barnes—even from inside the Suit, Barnes is almost a foot taller—and while Tony’s HUD shows all the ways Barnes’s body is reacting to whichever of the burns happened just now, nothing in Barnes’s body language hints at anything wrong. There is no hunching, no spreading of the legs to keep the burns from touching fabric or skin, no tears. Just that elevated heart rate and those dilated pupils. 

“Does it....does it get you high?” Tony wonders aloud. “I’m gonna get you a therapist either way, and Steve and I will be having a conversation about this, because  _ what the fuck _ . But just....help me understand, here.”

“I hate my cunt, and hurting it makes me not feel dead,” Barnes replies, and then just walks away. Tony watches, and his chest is doing....something, some combination of anger, horror, empathy, and fear, and it feels like shit. Like when Obie took the arc reactor. 

Once again the door to the lab shuts behind the Winter Soldier and leaves Tony alone with his tools, including the hapless propane torch. 

“JARVIS, please do a search for local psychologists who aren’t horrible to trans people and who pass all the relevant background checks to work with the Avengers,” Tony chokes out. What else is there to do? He feels like an idiot standing here in the Suit by himself, but now he doesn’t want to take it off, either. He especially doesn’t want his crotch in the same room as that blowtorch. Just the thought makes him want to retch. 

“I already have a list of five, sir, and this week I took the liberty of checking that they are available for new clients. This is the same list of clinicians I encouraged  _ you _ to pick from, for yourself.”

“Don’t you judge me, JARVIS. I know I have issues, but  _ I _ at least don’t try to barbecue my genitals!”

JARVIS does not reply to this. So Tony activates the Suit’s release, letting it retract away from his skin. The room feels cold even though its temperature has not changed. 

“In the future, sir,” JARVIS ventures, their tone this time almost shy. “If Sergeant Barnes should do anything similar, I wondered if I might be allowed to pilot one of your suits myself, to intervene as necessary without disturbing you or anyone else in the household. The Sergeant should of course be prevented from this sort of extreme self-destruction, but I feel strongly that the Sergeant’s privacy should not otherwise be violated.”

“Yeah, okay, permission granted.” Trembles run up and down Tony’s legs, and suddenly he realizes he will collapse if he doesn’t sit down. So he sinks onto the floor, graceless, and lets his head hang over his knees. His face tingles, and darkness dances at the edges of his vision.

“JARVIS, I’m not like that, am I? Because that was....that was....something.”

“Not anymore, sir. At least not often,” JARVIS says, gently, but Tony still closes his eyes and digs his fingernails into his scalp at the words. “You have been better in recent years, especially now that you are not living alone in the Tower, and have your work with the Avengers to occupy you.”

“That’s....that’s good,” Tony whispers. “It’s good that I’m not like that.”

He worries that he's worse.


End file.
